Polybius | Critical Essay by Kurt von Fritz

Critical Essay by Kurt von Fritz

SOURCE: "Polybius's Principles of Historiography and His Theory of the Origin of the State," in The Theory of the Mixed Constitution in Antiquity: A Critical Analysis of Polybius's Political Ideas, Columbia University Press, 1954, pp. 40-59.

In the following excerpt, von Fritz compares elements of Polybius's political thought with the ideas of Aristotle, Plato, and the Stoics.

It was Polybius who coined the expression "pragmatic history" or "the pragmatic method of historiography," yet the meaning of "pragmatic," as Polybius uses it, is not quite identical with, though it is closely related to, the meaning which the term has acquired in modern times. In coining the new term Polybius wished to set off his own method against other methods of which he disapproved, and the full meaning of the term as he uses it is, therefore, to some extent determined...